U.S. President Obama and his South Korean counterpart pressed North Korea to return to dormant nuclear talks and said it was time forPyongyang to break a pattern of provocative behaviour.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told President Barack Obama his nation does not seek a trade surplus with the United States and wants to balance flows, striking a conciliatory note but avoiding public comment on currency rifts.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told President Barack Obama his nation does not seek a trade surplus with the United States and wants to balance flows, striking a conciliatory note but avoiding public comment on currency rifts.

U.S. President Barack Obama will arrive in South Korea on Wednesday and hold a summit with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Thursday, with North Korea and a trade deal topping the agenda of their talks.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday nudged Chinese President Hu Jintao to allow the yuan currency to appreciate at a summit where they agreed to work to ease trade and economic friction between both countries.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday that Washington was not trying to contain China's rise but said trade between the two giants needed to be more balanced.

The crisis is not over as unemployment is likely to continue rising for the next 10 to 11 months, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the IMF, told CNBC Thursday.

Rising unemployment is the biggest threat to free trade and could spark greater protectionist policies around the globe, the head of the World Trade Organization said.

China sent its clearest signal yet it was ready to let its currency rise, saying it would consider major currencies, not just the dollar, in guiding exchange rates.

Warren Buffett's company will sell its stakes in Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern railroads before it completes its $26.3 billion acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad.

China will lift gasoline and diesel prices by around 7 percent from 1600 GMT on Monday to reflect the rising cost of crude oil, taking pump prices to their highest ever, a government official told Reuters on Monday.

China denounced as protectionist new U.S. anti-dumping duties and vowed to protect the interests of its industry a week before President Barack Obama heads for talks in Beijing and Shanghai.

The United States has set preliminary anti-dumping duties ranging from 36.53 percent to 99.14 percent on Chinese-made steel pipe used in wells to extract oil from the earth, a source familiar with the situation said on Thursday.

The United States said on Tuesday it set preliminary duties ranging from 2 percent to 438 percent on hundreds of millions of dollars of imported steel wire decking from China to offset government subsidies.

Stocks tumbled Friday, giving back all of the gains from the prior session, as worries about the recovery escalated after a pair of reports on the consumer and as the dollar rallied. The Dow shed 250 points, or 2.5 percent, but finished flat for the month.